British Labour Movement
|
By David Brandon
|
|
Tuesday, 09 September 2008 |
|
 The Labour
Movement must learn from the lessons provided by its own history. The trade
unions were created out of class struggle. To establish themselves they had to
fight the hostility of Parliament, the courts, the employers and the media. Here we trace how the TUC arose from the need
to secure a legal basis for the developing union movement in the 1860s.
|
|
|
By Ed Doveton
|
|
Thursday, 31 July 2008 |
|
In September 1931,
the sailors of the Atlantic Fleet of the British Royal Navy organised an
insurrection against the government in response to pay cuts and conditions of
employment. Known as the Invergordon Mutiny, it is one of the historical
examples of the power of class-based action in response to attacks on living
standards.
|
|
|
By David Brandon
|
|
Tuesday, 13 May 2008 |
|
A name etched into the collective consciousness of the labour and trade
union movement is that of the 'Tolpuddle Martyrs', a case which clearly demonstrated that the State is
not a neutral instrument, but the means by which the ruling class will
use peaceful means by preference and violence if necessary in order to
maintain its power. So who were the Tolpuddle Martyrs,
what did they do and what lessons do they have for socialists in the
twenty-first century?
|
|
|
By David Brandon
|
|
Friday, 01 February 2008 |
 Pentrich in Derbyshire is a quiet place these days. But in 1817 it was the centre of a plot to
overthrow the Government of the day. Britain had been at war with Revolutionary and Napoleonic
France almost continuously until 1815. When war ended, the
economy slumped. It was the poor who had borne the brunt
of the fighting. Now they were required to bear the economic and
social fallout from the subsequent peace.
|
|
|
By David Brandon
|
|
Tuesday, 15 January 2008 |
|
 In April and May of 1797 the British ruling
class was horrified when two naval mutinies broke out; the first was at
Spithead, close to Portsmouth; the second at the Nore which marks the seaward
approach to the Thames Estuary.
The State
can ultimately be reduced to bodies of armed men. These bodies of armed men are
used by the ruling class either to maintain its power against what it sees as
internal enemies, to defend itself against foreign aggression, or in support of
its own aggressive action against foreign nations. Since its power lies in its
ability to threaten or actually to use force, the ruling class regards anything
that jeopardises the effectiveness of the State apparatus with the utmost
seriousness. This explains why mutinies in the armed forces are of such concern
to them.
|
|
|
By Rob Sewell
|
|
Monday, 10 December 2007 |
 At the University of East Anglia recently Rob Sewell of the Socialist Appeal gave a talk on the Miners strike in Britain 1984-5. The strike was a culmination of the inevitable build up of tension between the ruling and working class. In the post-war period the decline of British imperialism had occured. The Tories of the 1980s were a rabid reaction to that phenomenon, determined to destroy the organised labour movement by taking on its most militant section, the National Union of Miners.
|
|
|
By David Brandon
|
|
Friday, 19 October 2007 |
 In the period of intense and bitter struggles described in Part 1, the
massacre at Peterloo in August 1819 was just the most extreme example.
Arthur Thistlewood was able to gather around him a mixed collection of
other individuals equally impatient to bring matters to a head and have
it out with the country's political leaders. They believed that violent
direct action was the answer.
|
|
|
By David Brandon
|
|
Monday, 15 October 2007 |
 Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are
doomed to repeat them. For this reason, socialists take the study of the past
struggles of working people very seriously. In 1820 six men, convicted of treason, were publicly hanged
and then beheaded outside Newgate Prison in the City of London. The crime of
which they had been convicted was plotting to assassinate the entire Cabinet as
it sat enjoying a working dinner. This attempt at a violent coup d'etat is now
largely forgotten, tucked away as a footnote in the history books. It deserves
to be better known.
|
|
|
By Mick Brooks
|
|
Tuesday, 18 September 2007 |
 Kinder Scout in the Derbyshire peak
District is one of the most beautiful areas in Britain. The high
moorland has no farming value, yet working people were denied all
access. The area was reserved for grouse shooting, a hobby of the
rich. In the Great Depression after 1929,
walking and cycling were two of the only leisure activities young
workers could afford. On April 24th Benny Rothman
led the mass trespass that eventually gave chunks of ‘our'
country back to us.
|
|
|
By Barbara Humphries
|
|
Thursday, 04 May 2006 |
|
On the 80th anniversary of the 1926 general strike in Britain we look at what led to it and why it eventually was defeated. In spite of the tremendous militancy of the British working class, the top leaders of the trade union movement proved to be only too willing to compromise and get the workers back to work. |
|
|
By Phil Mitchinson
|
|
Thursday, 04 May 2006 |
|
Eighty years ago an earthquake shook the very foundations of British capitalism. In the greatest display of militant power in its history, the British working class moved into action in the General Strike of 1926. For 9 days, from May 3, not a wheel turned nor a light shone without the permission of the working class. In such a moment, with such power, surely it ought to have been possible to have transformed society? How can such a position have ended in defeat? (by Phil Mitchinson, originally published in May 2001) |
|
|
By Phil Mitchinson
|
|
Friday, 05 March 2004 |
|
Twenty years ago on March 5, 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
embarked upon the most important class struggle in Britain since the general
strike of 1926. A ferocious battle ensued. Billions of pounds were spent by the
ruling class to crush the miners’ militancy. More than ten thousand miners
were arrested; two were killed on the picket lines and countless others injured.
Decades of so-called consensus were obliterated and the real and ugly face of
British capitalism was exposed for all to see.
|
|
|
By Phil Mitchinson
|
|
Friday, 05 March 2004 |
|
An essential lesson to draw from the miners’ strike is the vital role of
leadership. The miners’ leaders stood head and shoulders above the majority of
British trade union leaders. The leaders of the NUM were a source of
inspiration. At the same time these leaders were inspired by the courage and
determination of the rank and file miners, of their wives and their communities.
Unfortunately courage alone is not enough to win such titanic battles. It must
be accompanied by correct tactics and strategy.
|
|
|
Thursday, 04 March 2004 |
|
An interview with Nigel Pearce, a member of the National Executive of the
National Union of Mineworkers and working miner. He explains how the strike
developed and the turning point that it represented for labour relations in
Britain. In spite of the defeat he says, "We were right to fight, we had a
duty to fight, and I'm proud to have fought, and I'm proud of all those I fought
alongside." |
|
|
Monday, 26 January 2004 |
|
On Saturday 24 January, the British TV channel, Channel Four, broadcast a
documentary about the miners’ strike. Anyone who tuned in looking for an
objective account of the strike was doomed to be disappointed. The purpose of
this documentary was not to clarify what happened but to blacken the memory of
the striking miners and mislead the present generation by a combination of lies,
falsifications and trivialisation. Against all the lies, distortion and venom,
the Marxists will defend the memory of this epic struggle and pass on the great
lessons to the new generation that is destined to carry on the fight to a
victorious conclusion. |
|
| << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
| | Results 1 - 15 of 18 |
|
Socialist Appeal Xmas Fighting Fund appeal 2008
Latest International News
New Book - 'Reformism or Revolution' - now available
Marxist International Review
Send us reports!
Send us your letters, articles or workplace and trade union reports!
Please get in touch and wherever possible we will publish submitted articles on our website or in our monthly paper Socialist Appeal.
|
